Elizabeth

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Elizabeth and Richard were married in the bridal suite on the eighth floor of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal by a Unitarian minister (who was able to overlook Elizabeth’s previous four marriages and conduct the ceremony anyway). It was Elizabeth’s fifth wedding and she was only thirty-two. Richard was thirty-nine. Of

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  course, Elizabeth was late for the ceremony, causing Richard to ask in his own inimitable fashion, “Isn’t that fat little tart here yet? I swear to you she’ll be late for the last bloody judgment.”

  When she did arrive, Elizabeth looked beautiful in a low-cut canary-yellow chiffon gown designed by Irene Sharaff—designer of the costumes in Cleopatra—that was patterned after the gown Elizabeth wore in her first scene with Richard in Cleopatra. At her neck was a $100,000 emerald brooch, which had been a gift from Richard during the filming of that movie. As a wedding gift, Richard presented her with a striking emerald-and-diamond brooch from Bulgari. He had given her earrings to match for her thirty-second birthday. A bracelet soon followed. Taken together, the jewels are sometimes referred to as the Grand Duchess Vladimir Suite.

  Her natural hair was entwined with long and flowing wig pieces that fell in tendrils framing her face. The entire Ronald DeMann creation was decorated with Roman hyacinths. Burton was dressed in a dark suit and red tie and wore a sprig of freesia that Elizabeth plucked from her bridal bouquet and pinned to his lapel. Francis and Sara Taylor were present for the ceremony, though Elizabeth’s children were not. Richard’s valet, Bob Wilson, was the best man. Elizabeth was ebullient.

  “You have both gone through great travail in your love for each other,” the minister said in his remarks to them. They had to agree.

  The ceremony took just ten minutes. Richard’s agent, Hugh French, who attended the ceremony, recalled, “When the minister pronounced them man and wife, the loveliest of smiles appeared on both their faces. It was so very apparent that they were thrilled, that they took the vows very seriously.”

  “I truly believe in my heart that this marriage will last forever,”

  said the now five-time bride. “I know I have said that before, but this time I really do think it is true.”

  Reflecting public opinion, there were a lot of jokes made at Elizabeth’s expense, some of them pretty funny. 240

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  “If you’re looking for a steady job, gals,” quipped Bob Hope,

  “why not try out for flower girl at Liz Taylor’s weddings?”

  “Imagine! Marrying every husband you meet,” quipped Walter Winchell.

  However, Oscar Levant, who was a good friend of Elizabeth’s, had the best line: “Always a bride. Never a bridesmaid.”

  More seriously, Elizabeth in 1964 recalled of the ceremony, “It was like coming home, a golden warmth. We knew then that there was only one way, indirectly, that we could make it up to all the ones who had suffered: by being good to each other and loving each other. But it has to be not just for now. In twenty-five years, fifty—then our marriage will have meaning; then all of the unhappiness will at least have been for something.”

  After their return to Toronto the night of the ceremony, Richard got back to the business of Hamlet and performed in the show that evening. He received six curtain calls. Finally, he stepped toward the front of the stage and said, “I would like to quote from the play—act three, scene one: ‘We will have no more marriages.’ ” It brought the house down.

  Prior to the marriage, Elizabeth had wanted to attend every performance she could, but her presence caused such an uproar during intermission that the theater couldn’t raise the curtain for act two. With the public able to approach her while she was held captive in her seat, there was nothing she could do but smile and sign autographs. “It’s best if you watch from the wings, luv,”

  Richard suggested after they were wed. “Soon they’ll be selling tickets to see you, and not me!”

  For his part, Richard had been having some problems with the role. Perhaps he was distracted, or maybe he’d been off the stage for so long that he was rusty. Seeing that her husband needed help, Elizabeth dedicated herself to finding a solution for him. What could she do? She didn’t feel equipped to help him with his characterization. “It’s just so far beyond what I am as an actress,”

  she said, in a moment of self-deprecating candor. “I wouldn’t pre-“Liz and Dick”

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  sume to tell Richard how to act on the stage.” Still, she knew she had to do something.

  Elizabeth decided to contact Richard’s mentor and drama coach, Philip Burton, in New York, where he was a faculty member at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy of New York. Though she knew that Philip had been against her romance with Burton, she felt the bigger issue was that Burton now needed help, and she knew no one else who could give it. She begged Philip to come to Canada and work with Richard. “I think he just needs someone to tell him how truly brilliant he is,” she said.

  “And he won’t listen to me, his wife. But he would listen to you. Please,” she implored, “do this for Richard, if not for me.”

  Philip wanted to assist his protégé, but felt torn by his allegiance to Sybil. When he asked her about it, though, she said,

  “Absolutely, yes. You must go to him. He needs you.”

  When Philip showed up in Toronto, no man had ever been happier to see him than Richard. He couldn’t believe that Elizabeth had summoned his mentor, and he was elated. Philip and Richard worked on Burton’s characterization of the Prince of Denmark. The first night thereafter, Burton got the longest standing ovation he’d ever received from an audience. He was filled with a new confidence, now truly ready for Broadway. “Elizabeth was delighted,” said Robert Burr, Richard’s understudy. “That she could contribute to his well-being made her feel necessary in his life, and she would have done anything for him, really.”

  For Richard, it was further proof that Elizabeth really did care about him, did want to be there for him, and could do so if she set her mind to it. It hadn’t been easy for him to let go of Sybil completely, but he had to admit that his new wife was proving herself to him with each passing day, and working hard at it.

  “I owe this to you,” he told her lovingly. “You did this for me, sending for Philip, and I owe my success in this show to you, my love.”

  Those were the words she’d wanted to hear. Elizabeth rushed into his arms.

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  On the final night in Toronto, Richard walked onto the stage of the O’Keefe Theatre and gave another stunning performance. At the last of several curtain calls, he said, “Some of you have come here to see Alfred Drake; some have come to see Eileen Herlie; some have come to see Hume Cronyn; and some have come to see Elizabeth Taylor,” noting the fact that she was often in the audience for his shows. “Now, for the first time on any stage, Elizabeth Taylor has come to see you.” With that, out walked his wife. The entire audience rose to its feet with a thunderous ovation. Richard Burton wanted to share his stage with her, and for him, it was quite the validation. There she stood, center stage, to accept their approval. No matter what she had done to antagonize the public with “Le Scandale,” Elizabeth Taylor was still their beloved star. Richard put his arm around his wife proudly as the two walked offstage, applause echoing throughout the theater.

  The Boston Brawl

  A fter Toronto, the next stop for Hamlet, before it was to play Broadway, was Boston. It was in that city that Elizabeth and Richard truly realized how famous they had become . . . and what their lives would be like now that they had married. When they landed at the airport, there were about thirty-five hundred fans waiting for them. They managed to get through the crush and arrived at Boston’s quiet Sheraton Plaza Hotel without incident. Though no crowd blocked the sidewalk in front of the hotel, the security detail guarding the entrance included one lieutenant, two sergeants, and twenty-four patrolmen. Hand in hand, the Burtons
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  walked into the lobby, where they were greeted by the smiling hotel manager. Suddenly, from seemingly nowhere, a mob of people exploded into the lobby, entering like gangbusters through the back (and carelessly unprotected) entrance. The Burtons’ entwined fingers were ripped apart as the crowd surged forward, lifting Elizabeth as if in a tidal wave and throwing her up against a wall like a rag doll. Some of the fans held roses, others photos of the Burtons that they wished to have signed. The riot became unmanageable, and Elizabeth began to scream, “Back off! Back away!” The fans tore at her clothes, yanked at her hair, clawed at her face. “I saw them grab her arms, and pull in opposite directions,” one horrified eyewitness later recalled. “I thought she would just split in half. It was truly shocking, a terrifying scene. On the floor, getting kicked around by the crowd, was her alligator handbag with solid gold fittings. I just remember this bag being tossed about.”

  Elizabeth screamed for help. Somehow, Richard got to her. His clothes had been torn, some of his hair pulled out. Swatting away the fans like flies, he managed to get Elizabeth to the elevator. Finally, all of those police officers served some purpose when they blocked the elevator entrance and allowed the Burtons to sail to their ten-room suite on the eleventh floor.

  Tom Gates recalls, “The caption on the back of a U.P.I. photo taken during the fracas states, ‘Liz Taylor, hands to face, sobs as she is led down corridor to hotel suite by her husband, Richard Burton, after the newlyweds were mobbed as they arrived yesterday. Some 1,000 curious fans tore at their hair and clothing. Miss Taylor suffered back and arm injuries. She was treated by a doctor, given a sedative and put to bed.’ [Elizabeth’s publicist] John Springer told me that this was the scariest situation of his entire life. He also said that once he was reunited with the Burtons, nobody said a word as they were led to the hotel suite. However, once the three of them were safely inside, Elizabeth collapsed on the bed and, despite her injuries, began laughing uncontrollably at what had happened.”

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  The following evening, when John Springer and his assistant Diane Stevens knocked on the Burtons’ door, Elizabeth answered. She was wearing a black dress with pink shoes dotted with rhinestones. She also had on a silver mink coat. “I’m going to Richard’s opening,” she announced. “I’m all ready. I just have to touch up my makeup.” As she said the words, though, she seemed to sway, as if still quite unwell.

  “I don’t think you can go,” Diane said. “Elizabeth, you should go back to bed.”

  “That’s what I tried to tell her,” Richard said, entering the room. “But she won’t listen to me.”

  “But for me to not be present opening night, it’s just not right,”

  Elizabeth said. “I simply must do it, Richard.”

  “But listen to me, Elizabeth, there are five thousand fans waiting at the theater’s entrance,” said Springer. “We just came from there. You can’t do it. They’ll kill you, for sure.” Actually, there were just a few hundred fans at the theater. John was lying, but with good intentions.

  “You see?” Richard said, reaching for Elizabeth. He held her closely. “Stay here, safe. You will be with me in spirit, my love,”

  he told her. “That is all I need to carry me through.”

  She seemed to collapse into his arms. They kissed.

  “That’s when I really knew how much they loved each other,”

  said Diane Stevens. “I had never seen such a connection between two people, so much caring. It made me melt inside.”

  Richard led his wife to the bedroom. As they walked off, Elizabeth turned to John and Diane. “The next time someone says how much they envy me, tell them about this night,” she said, “when I couldn’t even go to my husband’s opening.”

  “Oh, please,” Richard said. “Here she blows again,” he added with a loaded smile. “Crying a river of tears because she can’t have her way. Poor, poor Miss Taylor.”

  Elizabeth punched him playfully on the shoulder. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” she exclaimed. “Just get me to the bedroom, before I pass out.”

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  Richard’s Hemophilia

  A fter Boston, Richard made his Broadway star turn in Hamlet at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in April 1964. For the entire time he appeared in the show, there would be chaos in Times Square every time he and Elizabeth showed up at the theater, and then more pandemonium when they departed after the show. Gary Springer, son of the Burtons’ publicist, John, was ten in 1964. “The crowds, the mobs that would be outside the theater every night, it was incredible,” he recalled. “There was nothing like it in New York at the time, maybe in the country. They used to close 46th Street when the show let out, because there would be such a mob. I remember one time my dad and I were going to dinner with Richard. Elizabeth was meeting us at the restaurant. Richard had put me on his shoulders to fight through the crowd. Going from the stage door to the car, I lost both of my shoes, both of my socks, and my pants were being yanked down. The public couldn’t get enough of them. Just a glimpse of the two of them was all most of the people needed, and that was about all they would get anyway, as the stars rushed in and out of the theater district in their chauffeur-driven Town Car.”

  Tom Gates recalls one memorable afternoon during the Broadway run of Hamlet. “One day, Elizabeth ducked out of the Regency and into the nearby Colony for lunch, and I was there, of course, wanting to photograph her. At this same time, a young man with a strong Texas accent named Van Zandt Ellis [the future concert pianist] happened by and asked if there was any way he could meet Elizabeth since she’d been the inspiration for a piano piece he’d written. We walked to the restaurant and I suggested he write her a note. He agreed, and as she exited dressed all in pink with a pink-flowered hat and clutching her little Yorkshire terrier, he handed her the note. She accepted it with a polite, ‘Thank you.’

  She then started to cross the street without looking just as a speeding car approached. Luckily, the quick-thinking doorman grabbed 246

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  her by the arm and [pulled her] back onto the sidewalk as the car whooshed by her. We were all nearly in shock by how close she had come to true disaster, but Elizabeth simply thanked the doorman as one would for opening a door. Just then, Philip Burton raced up, urgently asking if she were all right. ‘I’m fine, really I am,’ she said as she very nonchalantly opened the note. ‘Philip, this is the sweetest thing,’ she said as if her brush with death was ancient history, ‘somebody has composed a sonata for me!’ I then introduced her to Van Zandt and she thanked him profusely. Soon Richard’s car pulled up and a huge crowd started forming as Richard got out of it. Before heading inside Elizabeth and Richard graciously posed with their little Yorkie in front of the Regency for what turned out to be one of my very favorite photos of them together.”

  During his Broadway run, Richard’s reviews were stunning. Indeed, he was the toast of the town during this golden time, and no one was prouder of him than Elizabeth. She hosted many dinner parties in his honor at Sardi’s, and happily basked in the glow of Richard’s stardom. It was almost as if she didn’t have a career herself—she never mentioned it, nor did she ever think of it—but that was exactly as she wanted it at the time. “I was totally devoted to Richard,” she recalled, “and not for a second did I regret it. I was so proud of him, and I felt so much a part of things. I didn’t need to make movies. I had made movies for years,” she said, “and I was never as happy as I was during that early time in my marriage to Richard.”

  The Burtons were staying at the Regency, and their time there, with Elizabeth’s children, was happy. The couple was more kind and loving to one another than ever in the past. “We were a real family,” Elizabeth said dreamily. “It was picture perfect.”

  There were times, though, when Richard’s drinking was a problem. After having as many as four martinis before going onstage, he would
sometimes have trouble retaining his lines. Elizabeth, who’d previously had little problem with Richard’s drinking while he worked, felt strongly that his work on Broadway was, as she put

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  it, “much too important to just take a chance and muck it all up.”

  She knew how hard he had worked at the role, and she didn’t want to see him fail at it, even for one night. After a dozen shows, though, Richard didn’t care as much as he had at the beginning of the run.

  One night in May, Richard completely massacred the “Play’s the thing” speech and was booed by someone in the audience. He was as infuriated as he was hurt. When he got back to the Regency, he found Elizabeth in the parlor, curled up on a couch, drinking a Vodka Collins and watching a Peter Sellers movie on television. “They booed, can you believe it?” he roared as soon as he walked into the suite. “How dare they, those sniveling bastards?”

  “How dare you, Richard?” she said, looking up at her husband. Burton walked over to the television and turned it off. “What do you mean?” he asked, his temper rising.

  “How dare you allow those people to pay those high ticket prices, and then show up not able to perform?” Elizabeth said, now standing up and meeting him face-to-face.

  “My drinking has never interfered with my work,” he said.

  “Well, we’re all in denial about something, aren’t we now, Richard?” she said, remaining calm. “Now, I’d like to get back to my movie. Please.” It was an odd lecture coming from her, especially since she often used to stand in the wings and hand him glasses of champagne to sip on when he wasn’t onstage. But to try to make sense of her mood that night, all these years later, is fruitless. She turned her back to him to return to the couch. Richard went into the bedroom and undressed. He returned a half hour later in his pajamas and robe, and in bare feet. “Are you still watching that goddamn silliness?” he asked her. He was clearly still angry.